Bur­glar slashes vic­tim with ra­zor

Court told of as­sault as res­i­dent tries to stop sus­pect

A pi­lot who con­fronted a bur­glar at his home suf­fered 13 wounds af­ter be­ing slashed with a ra­zor, a Dubai court heard.

Richard Mark Bar­ber, a 54-year-old Ir­ish ex­pat who works for Emi­rates, was at home in Safa when a man broke in to his home and tried to steal his mo­tor­bike.

At Dubai Court of First In­stance yes­ter­day, a 24-year-old Emi­rati ap­peared in con­nec­tion with the in­ci­dent, charged with at­tempted rob­bery and as­sault.

Prose­cu­tors said that, on De­cem­ber 24 last year, Bar­ber was sleep­ing at his villa when he was wo­ken by noises about 4am.

He said he thought it was his son mak­ing a snack so he went to check the kitchen and saw a masked thief hold­ing a wal­let and try­ing to es­cape.

“I yelled at him and he fled so I chased him on foot and I saw a car wait­ing for him but the driver es­caped and left the thief alone,” Bar­ber said in of­fi­cial records. He added that he man­aged to punch the thief and take off the mask as he tried to res­train him.

“He raised a sharp ra­zor then made more than 13 wounds and cuts on my body and fled,” Bar­ber said.

The court heard the pi­lot’s daugh­ter fol­lowed her fa­ther and saw him bleed­ing so called an am­bu­lance and Dubai Po­lice. Bar­ber was taken to Rashid Hospi­tal for treat­ment.

An Emi­rati po­lice­man tes­ti­fied that they ar­rested the de­fen­dant at the scene and he con­fessed.

“He was try­ing to steal the mo­tor­bike when the owner sur­prised him and he said that his friend helped him with the rob­bery and was wait­ing for him out­side the villa in a car,” the po­lice­man said.

Po­lice ar­rested a 30-year-old Emi­rati on sus­pi­cion of help­ing the de­fen­dant, how­ever he claimed he didn’t know his friend planned to com­mit a rob­bery and he just dropped him at the villa then left.

The younger de­fen­dant de­nied charges of bur­glary, as­sault and at­tempted rob­bery when he ap­peared in court yes­ter­day while his al­leged ac­com­plice de­nied at­tempted rob­bery and aid­ing and abet­ting in the crime.